


The Ground You Walk On; a tragedy in three parts

by ohemdee



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Blackwatch Era, M/M, Present Era, Time Skips, Unhappy Ending, sorry someone said angst and I ran with it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-18 19:31:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13107015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohemdee/pseuds/ohemdee
Summary: Three moments in the life of Jesse McCree. Three moments in the life of Gabriel Reyes. Times they came together, times they fell apart.





	The Ground You Walk On; a tragedy in three parts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nikorys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikorys/gifts).



> This was written as a part of the McReyes Secret Snowflake for [nikorys](http://archiveofourown.org/users/nikorys). Thank you for the prompt, I'm sorry I made it sad!  
> As well, thank you, thank you to [smarshtastic](http://archiveofourown.org/users/smarshtastic/pseuds/smarshtastic) for beta reading!

**Part One: Enter Jesse McCree**

 

The man who was shoving Jesse along had hands bigger than Jesse’s head. Or, at very least, they felt that way on the back of Jesse’s neck. Jesse’s hands were cuffed, the bruises from his fight with the restraints already blooming, spreading up his forearms, and turning the backs of his hands purple. He had given up fighting a little while ago, too exhausted from the day’s encounters, from his interrogation by a blond man whose face should probably be on a poster somewhere, and now from being dragged around by this asshole. Reyes.

Jesse tried to look up at him, but the hand on his neck squeezed hard the second his head tilted. Jesse bit his lip and tried to side eye the man instead. 

“Where are you takin’ me?”

Reyes looked down at him, not faltering in his pace. “Where are you taking me,  _ sir _ ?”

“Aw, there ain’t no need to call me anything fancy, I’m just nobody. And I don’t know where we’re goin’.” Jesse would swear to his grave that the man tried to hold back a smile, quickly covering it with a withering glare.

“We are going to my interrogation room. You aren’t quite up to Overwatch’s standards, ingrate.”

The reached a door, and Jesse watched carefully as Reyes typed in a passcode, and then scanned his hand. No getting out that way then. He was shoved ungracefully through the door, and Reyes waved vaguely at the chairs in the centre of the room. 

“Sit.”

“I think I like standin’.” Jesse pulled himself up to his full height, trying to pretend that it didn’t hurt like hell. Almost definitely broke his ribs.

“Your choice.” Reyes took a seat. “So, Deadlock gang, shot two Overwatch agents, fought the whole way in.” He pulled out a datapad. “Long, long list of felonies. Arms dealing, drug running, the whole nine yards, kid. I’d been impressed if it wasn’t my job not to be. This.” He waved the datapad at Jesse. “This does not look good for you.”

“I ain’t eighteen yet. Can’t do much.”

“I’m sure we can talk the courts into trying you as an adult. Won’t take much.” Reyes leaned forward, elbows on his knees and looked up at Jesse. “But I can offer you a better deal. You’re a hell of a shot, and Blackwatch doesn’t quite have the same...morals that Overwatch does.”

Jesse stood silently, shifting his weight back and forth, subtly trying to find the least painful position to stand in. “Sure sounds like I’d be swappin’ out one gang for another.”

“Sure sounds like you don’t have much of a choice.”

Jesse waited for as long as he could before answering, letting the pause fill the air. Despite a lot of evidence to the contrary, he really did know when to keep his mouth shut, and Reyes had the upper hand here. Also, apparently the patience of a saint. He just kept sitting there, watching Jesse with that same expressionless look. 

“You keep hesitating, and you might find out you don’t have a choice.” Reyes stood, looking at his data pad. “And I have places to be.”

Jesse sighed, all of the fight gone out of him. “Okay, I’ll take your deal.”

Reyes stuck his hand out, taking Jesse’s hand when it wasn’t offered, and shaking it. “Welcome to the team, ingrate. Let’s get you to medical.”

 

* * *

 

**Part Two: Exit Jesse McCree**

 

His bag had been packed for weeks. Civvie clothing, enough food and supplies to at least get him to the border. A falsified passport that would let him across, and then he was free. Or as free as a man who was on the run from Overwatch could be. He checked through his supplies one last time, trying to pack it all tighter. Better to pack too light than be weighed down. He could always steal what he needed as he needed it.

A knock at his door made him scramble, shoving the bag under the bed. “Just a minute.”

Of course that meant Gabe walked right in without waiting. “You weren’t at dinner.”

Jesse sat back down on his bed, only halfway through getting up anyways. “Wasn’t hungry.”

And Gabe. Gabe who had his number from the second that Jesse was dragged through Overwatch’s doors, reached under Jesse’s bed, and yanked the bag out. Jesse couldn’t look at him. This was the man who had pulled him out of Deadlock, taught him to shoot on something more than instinct, showed him love wasn’t always someone wanting something from him. And as much as Jesse needed to leave, had to get out of Blackwatch before things went the way he saw them going, he had been procrastinating for weeks. He knew that the second he did Gabe was going to tip over an edge that Jesse wasn’t going to get him back from. But when his options were to watch it happen, or to run away and pretend he knew nothing about it, Jesse would take the second route every time.

Gabe sat himself in the small desk chair, making it look even smaller than it was. “Were you planning on mentioning anything about that?”

Jesse scrubbed a hand over his face, scratching through his beard before meeting Gabe’s eyes. “Wasn’t really, no. Thought it might be better this way.”

“Was this because of what you saw with Moi-.”

Jesse stood up, cutting Gabe off. “I would rather not do this right now.”

“Where you planning on doing it ever?” There was an edge to Gabe’s voice that Jesse had never heard before. Hurt.

His throat tightened, and he swallowed thickly before he spoke. “Just waitin’ for the right time.”

Gabe stood up, planting himself directly in front of Jesse, grabbing his jaw, forcing Jesse to look back at him. He stared for a long time before he spoke, searching for something that Jesse didn’t know how to give him. Finally, he reached up with his other hand, stroking over Jesse’s cheekbones, planting a kiss on his forehead, and pulling him in close. 

“I always told you to never hesitate to tell me anything.”

Jesse nodded, pressing his face into Gabe’s neck. “Gabe, I know…” Gabe shushed him.

“What do you think I would have thought if you had just left? I would have ripped this place apart looking for you.” Jesse closed his eyes when he saw Gabe’s outline begin to fade into the darkness of the room, tendrils of smoke coming off him. “I’m only doing what I have to do, Jesse. But I guess you are too.”

Gabe pulled back, not letting go of Jesse, but making sure he could see his face, studying it carefully. Memorizing it for later. “Fucking ingrate.” Gabe cupped his cheek again, pulling him up for a proper kiss this time. “Keep your head on right, okay? I don’t want you back here in cuffs again.”

Jesse nodded, not trusting his voice, and watched as Gabe left, quietly shutting the door behind him. Jesse waited for the footsteps to fade, and then counted to thirty before grabbing his bag and his gun. No time like the present.

 

* * *

 

**Part Three: Enter Reaper**

 

Jesse didn’t move, his gun steady despite his pounding heart. It was impossible. He had seen the explosion, walked through days later, his heart breaking at the destruction. And yet.

“Are you going to take your shot?”

Some sort of permutation of a human voice, as though someone had only heard people talk through radio static and tried to recreate the sound. Jesse cocked the hammer, and the man in the mask laughed, the sound sending shivers down Jesse’s spine.

“You’re hesitating. What have you been told about hesitating?”

“Man who hesitates winds up dead.” Jesse hated that the words came up so easily. “The man who told me that never hesitated. Didn’t do him any good.”

The creature reached up for his mask.

“Don’t move.” Jesse felt his trigger finger tremble, held in place for too long, and the creature froze. 

“It’s just a mask.” And then its hands continued their ascent, sliding towards the releases for the mask, while Jesse stood, completely transfixed, hoping and hating himself for it, watching the reveal.

The mask dropped to the ground, next to the shotguns that should have been enough of a giveaway, but Jesse had refused to believe until he saw the face. Gabe stared back at him, but not through Gabe’s eyes. Gone was the soft brown, the laugh lines, the scars. Instead there was smoking edges, and red pupils, and nothing soft about any of it. Jesse was shaking his head without realising it.

“You’re lying. You’re dead.”

Gabe looked down at his hands. “Look pretty alive to me.”

Jesse took his shot. One. Two. Three bullets, making Gabe stumble backwards. Jesse cocked his gun, ready to go again, but Gabe just smiled at him, something a little too feral, a bit too unnatural in his gaze. He turned to smoke, and Jesse shot at a ghost.

A voice in his ear made him start. “Looks like you missed.” A hand, colder than any person should be ran through the hair at the base of Jesse’s neck, scratching gently.

And Gabe was gone, leaving Jesse to fall to his knees on an abandoned street, nothing but a mask and some guns as a reminder of what he’d been running from.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to come say hi on tumblr, do so! Here is my [main blog](http://oh-emdee.tumblr.com/). I love getting messages, and am happy to talk about anything over there!


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